If You Must Die

after Dr. Refaat Alareer

If you must die,
We must live
To tell your story
To read your poems
To sing a song of peace
in the streets
(make it soft with a slow beat)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza,
gathering close with families
to listen for signs for some kind of hope
among the faint voices
that crackle in and out
hears the song, your song we sang, ringing loud
and clear
and feels for a moment this hell can be stopped
which is the truth
If you must die
We'll carry you
In our beating heart

Acción de Gracias (Thanksgiving)

Acción de Gracias

reconocer lo hermoso 

sin ignorar lo que duele

ver cada uno precioso 

por la verdad que revele

a caminar con conciencia 

de nuestros muertos aquí

siempre sentir su presencia 

saber por eso nací

y sin cesando a dar gracias

ni a cantar las melodías 

mientras las bombas o falacias 

nos llueven todos los días

nos reunimos de nuevo 

en el desamor de esta tierra

y con ustedes me atrevo

vivir donde la vida nos destierra

Thanksgiving 

to recognize all the beauty 

without ignoring the pain

to see each one as precious

for the truth it contains

to always walk with awareness

of those still here who we mourn

to always feel their presence

to know for what we were born

and not to cease from thanksgiving 

or from singing our songs

even when each day keeps raining

on us lies or bombs 

again we gather together

on this heartbroken land

and with you, I still dare

to live where life has us banished

This is the Year (5784)

 “Sing to Yah,” cries the prophet Miryam,
as the Waters of Life rise around us
“Look!” cries the prophet Micah,
“Our God is coming out of hiding...
The mountains melt beneath and the valleys split apart,
like wax before the fire, water rushing down a slope.”

and as the shofar sounds on Rosh Hashana,
we hear the words of the prophet Chana:

“The bows of the mighty are broken,
And the feeble are girded with strength.
Men once sated must hire out for bread;
Those once hungry hunger no more...
The Eternal deals death and gives life,
Casts down to the grave and raises up...
Raises the poor from the dust,
Lifts up the needy from the ashes...”

This is the Year
after Martín Espada, and all prophets

This is in fact the year that squatters evict landlords,
meeting like city planners in the open of the parking lot
or sipping coffee with a blessing
for watching morning rain through the window

This is the year
that brown-skinned refugees
ship politicians to far off cities
who stare at their feet on buses and planes
considering the hospitality they will receive

This is the year that police glocks
scald the hands that grab them
and tasers backfire on their wielders

This is the year
that Indigenous children
buried under boarding schools
return to play on swing sets
and ask the teachers
difficult questions

This is the year
economics classes are banned
and aspiring investment bankers
have no place to study

This is the year that the small-minded bullies
who police our bodies and legislate our relatives to death
cannot find a public bathroom they feel comfortable peeing in

This is the year the fully-grown spoiled brats
and shameless fascists who rule our world and would cover it
in prisons to be filled with our children
wake in those cold rooms of their own making
and the eyes of those who have languished
sick, hungry and maddening in those cells
awaken each morning to the light of sun on their faces
and the scent of the angels of bread

This is the year that rats
grow fat in petting zoos, that no mother
wakes to the sound of rodents
chewing through her tent

This is the year cop cities,
police stations and torture sites
are razed to the ground to make space
for native forests and community orchards

This is the year we flood the courts and halls of power with justice
like a mighty river, like a hurricane, like wild fire
Until the high places of the world have been laid low

This is the year that billionaires
apply for Unemployment Assistance
and no dollars are given for bulldozers
to demolish the homes of Palestinian families
in Eretz Yisrael

If the abolition of slave auction blocks
began as a vision of human beings unshackled,
then this is the year;
if the shutdown of witch trials
began as imagination of human beings
unafraid of burning stakes, of drowning stones, or the gallows,
then this is the year;
if every revolution begins with the idea
that arrogant barons in fine clothes
are not divinely anointed lords,
that they too drown
if swallowed by the sea,
then this is the year.

So may every plundered body,
veins like desecrated rivers,
rise with the Waters of Life.

Despedida Quieta

Despedida Quieta
after Patrick Rosal

Dear heavy heart, dear poets, dear love-
starved ones, hear this: there are ancient
ruptures you must heal. Sigh your deepest
tearful wailings. Let your cries be pure
and harsh. Raw as noise, or soft
as wordless truth. Rip
the lies inside your soul to shreds
and sew yourself back up
with your own voice.

Nap when you want.
Sit as long as it serves.
Play your music as loud as you need to.

O, snowflakes,
O, lurkers,
O quiet quitters,
O fearless vanguard
of the Great Resignation,

Yours are the Kingdoms of Heaven and Hell,
the Earth and all of its fullness

Your revolution laughs
with the brash certainty 
of its own inevitability
on small screens between double shifts,
on trains from one gig to another

As each tired terrifying normal morning
brings its daily search for a cup of coffee
without the taste of genocide or slavery,
as the day drags on with more news of the dead
and all the accompanying reasons
as to why fascism is our best hope

and you gently sow seeds of liberation
in every conversation

Your business is salvation
Your future owes you a past
As much as history
has pledged redemption

and Now is Yours
and You are Here
and We will never know the intimacy
of your impossible piece of the chaos

but know:

Your tears are drops in the same great sea
that steadily reshapes continents
and even now is gathering in tidal waves

And when at last the struggle gives,
when walls and prisons fracture at your footsteps,
we will weep with gratitude to wash your feet –

All of us, who promised what you gave,
your Ancestors and all your Angels dear.

Holy Week 2023

On the full moon in April 80 years since Warsaw 40 since Harold Washington In the middle of Ramadan

On the night before Passover We in Chicago barely escaped from the narrowest prison

We woke the next morning with room to breathe for the first time in my life clearing our vision

Seeing each other embattled but standing with enough trust in ourselves to have made the decision

to feed more than punish to feel more than fear to believe in a new life to see ourselves risen

amidst the worst i have seen the best

amidst the worst i have seen the best
a man one cold night who breaks a lock

a prairie pond in a fenced-in block

a heart-shaped hole in a hornet's nest
a single star in a sky of black
a council under the red line track
a page filled up with a soul expressed
a single tooth pull corn off the cob
a last mile driver who quits the job
a teacher sleep when she needed rest
a child so bored that she builds a clock
a crowd of stray dogs that form a pack
a tiktok trend that ignites a mob
a swarm of pigeons ascend in flock
a people taking their whole world back
to share the bounty the bankers rob
and at long last make the least the blessed

This is the Year (2022/5783)

 This is the Year
after Martín Espada, and all prophets

This is in fact the year that squatters evict landlords,
meeting like city planners in the open of the parking lot
or sipping coffee with a blessing
for watching morning rain through the window;
this is the year
that brown-skinned refugees
ship governors to islands
who stare at their feet on the plane anticipating
the hospitality they are due;
this is the year that police glocks,
scalding-hot, burn the hands
that grab them,
and tasers backfire
on their wielders;
this is the year
that Indigenous children
buried under boarding schools
return to play on swing sets
and ask the teachers
difficult questions.

This is the year that those
who cross deserts with their children
and lay hushed in the backs of trucks
are greeted with trombones and choirs
at the first town boundary
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
drilling fence post holes into concrete
unearth stones carved with the original names
of the land beneath the concrete,
the hands operating circular saws
are cast in silver and mounted over the doors
of the giant glass towers they build;
this is the year that the eyes
stinging from contaminants in water
used to wash dishes
awaken at last to the sight
of sunflowers and grasshoppers,
pilgrimage of refugee roots;
this is the year that rats
grow fat in petting zoos, that no mother
wakes to the sound of rodents
chewing through her tent;
this is the year that billionaires
apply for Unemployment Assistance
and no tax dollars are given for bulldozers
to demolish Palestinian families' homes
in Eretz Yisrael.

If the abolition of slave auction blocks
began as a vision of humans unshackled,
then this is the year;
if the shutdown of witch trials
began as imagination of humans
unafraid of burning stakes, drowning stones, or the gallows,
then this is the year;
if every revolution begins with the idea
that arrogant barons in fine clothes
are not divinely anointed lords, that they too drown
if swallowed by the sea,
then this is the year.

So may every plundered body,
veins like desecrated rivers,
rise with the Waters of Life.

#RiseUpTown

Amidst cicadas roaring as the August moon waned new,
in Uptown, where the lakefront parks are lined with tarps and tents,
the stewards of tomorrow came to camp and demonstrate  
the meaning of the People – what is possible to do.

We made peace with our broken pieces, homes with zero rents,

a glimpse of what the world could be – a scene to emulate

in open disregard to those who buy and speculate

upon the land as their own private wealth, and build a fence.

We say the ones who call it home must build this land anew

And woe to those who see our size and underestimate.

The covenant is broken; we are here to make amends.

And day by day, we watched our tents and saw how our camp grew

despite evictions, lies and threats and storms, still we remain

in RiseUpTown, where we the people always rise again.

Our New Anthem

 Our New Anthem

after Aris Kian

in the age of streaming, gofundmes,
& the great so-called resignation

budget freeze, NFTs, & YouTube monetization
TikTok trends & endless wars
an apocalyptic phantom

if we need a revolution
we forsure need a new anthem

we need an anthem remixed from
the fragments of our struggles –
from a sunrise over Occupy
& the bills your sister juggles
on a beat that samples voices lost
in Ferguson, Missouri
over war cries sung at Standing Rock
full of all our tender fury

& the rawness of Snotty Nose Rez Kids
& the earnestness of Chance
the intensity of Saba
& the beat to drive the dance of Calle 13
not to mention the intelligence of NoName
& the soul of our Jamila Woods
we who wrote rules to our own game

cuz the older one was so lame it couldn't lead us any further
down the highway of our history / like a static frozen cursor

this new anthem has not been recorded,
written, mixed, or mastered
but it's being sung on every tongue
making beauty of disaster

we the students, we the teachers,
we the artists in the basements,
we the poets, we the dancers,
we the drummers, we the bassists,
we the beatmakers, the singers,
the kids who color outside the lines,
the self-employed content-creators
making the content of our times,
we the hackers & the bloggers,
the astrologers and nurses,
we the workers & the unemployed
counting blessings, shouting curses

we the people, come to cash our check
& make the last the first

our anthem will be sung in chorus
in every single language
over every human rhythm
at every factory abandoned
every picket line & protest
every jail & tent encampment

till the day we take our world back
& gather at the banquet

then we'll stand for our new anthem
with our hands upon our hearts
& we'll sing together

then, at last,
the true music will start.

humanities

in 7th grade, on poetry day
each human is a world
the pencils do their awkward dance
across the spiral journals
where visions are discovered
identities unfurled
fresh encounters of the soul
each poem draft a pearl

the boy who tells the pages
what it means to be Chinese
the girl who battles demons
in her morning dress routine
the emo kid who tries to write
the poem of an age
while the quiet gender-bending hero
turns another page

in these and many, many more
we're weaving Indra's Net
each diamond self reflecting
every other it has met
every body forms a letter
in the cosmic alphabet
every person is a Star

    (though most
   have not seen
   themselves yet... )

at least, I hope,
today's is one class
they won't soon forget

Jubilee Year

 Jubilee Year

This is our year of Jubilee

This year we issue our decree

That now from sea to shining sea

All vacant bank-owned homes are free

This is our year of Jubilee

This year the wealth that usually

is kept and hoarded brutally

is shared for all communally

This is the year we all agree

Our only healthcare policy

is make it free and quality

that life is no commodity

This year we heed our memory

And hear the Anishinabe

And honor every broken treaty

Right down to Mni Wiconi

This is our year of Jubilee

The land at last is now redeemed

and We the People will be free

This is our year of Jubilee

This is the year that poetry

breaks through the chains of legalese

and flows in waves throughout the streets

in song and chants and prophecy

This is our year of Jubilee

All debts are now hereby relieved

And prisoners are hereby free

From sea to shining fucking sea

This is our year of Jubilee

and rights of “private property”

are no defense for profiteering

off of death and poverty

This is our year of Jubilee

The deaf will hear / the blind will see

This is the year eternity is born again into the seed

from which it sprouted / up and outward

This is our world / This is We

The people / land and life itself

taking back the deed that rightfully was always ours

whether with arms or open arms

the Revolution is now born

and must arrive as surely

as the sky that sings the dawn

My friends,

the end of night is now upon us

Here / and near

Feel it: Power

This / is ours

This is Our Year

This Hour

Now

Prayer for May Day

I saw a bunch of potted flowers
bursting by a bank

        -- poppies, daisies, carnations,
                reds, blues, whites, golds, violets --

        how constricted there they seemed,
                audacious their delight...

I saw a bunch of people gathered
there at Union Park

        commies, anarchists, punks, queers,
                black, brown, white, young, old

        beautiful with joy and rage,
                but still, it seemed, too few...

Lord, let there be more like these
        -- flowers, people, gathered --

        Let them sprawl
                through downtown
                        rampantly,

                            trampling
                                    over banks!

Masks

Masks
after Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

We wear the mask that guards and saves
Our lives and loved ones from the graves
that multiply now round the earth;
These masks acknowledge death, rebirth,
and world-transforming catastrophe.

“Why should the world be born anew –
If millions die, that's what we do!”
say some who shun the masks, but choose
to fix their eyes hard at the news –
The masks of normalized cruelty.

This grotesque theater that we stage
each morning we suppress our rage
and heartbreak for our broken lives –
This act is how the flesh survives –
But daily crushes the spirit.

To wear the face mask is to say
“I recognize this harsh new day
And will no longer live in fear
Of change.” The time is drawing near
When empires fall and evaporate.

O Comrades, let us rend the veil,
that truth and justice may prevail,
Remove the masks that til this hour
Have kept us bowed to those in power;
The masks that make our faces theirs –
That twist our mouths and choke our prayers –
Must be replaced by flags of love
Declaring Enough is enough!
Until all faces radiate.

Pedagogy of the Poets (2021)

 [to see a video of me performing this piece, click here]

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Pedagogy of the Poets

This is our classroom:
this Cipher, this Circle,
this Open Mic to amplify our voices,

This Talking Stick, this ritual,
This space where we are all teachers and students
and our Conversation is the lesson:
Voices in dialogue, concert,
Testimonies meeting, alchemizing in the air –

This is our Eternal Truth, our only Theory,
our Sacred Text, ever-changing,
We are Movement, Evolution,
Truly human, being praxis,
We practice the Art of Speaking and Listening.
The Word and the Silence are the legs on which we walk:
The Word to name ourselves and the world,
The Silence to hear what others are saying,
The Word to know, to defend, to dream,
Silence, soil to receive these seeds.

This is the Garden, the Ecosystem.
This is Art and age-old Wisdom,
This is the theater, this is the stage.
This is the altar on which we pray.
This is our church and our town hall,
Our congress and congregational.
This is our government: We are the legislators.
This is our Classroom: We are the Educators.

Capitalist pedagogy works top-down:
“Study for the test / Listen up / Shut your mouth!”
Standardized curricula written by the State,
Memorizing disconnected facts for a grade.
Keep it compartmentalized – don’t connect the dots.
Teach em to be satisfied with the poverty they got.
Never use the word “oppression,” that’s unpatriotic.
Don’t teach Ethnic Studies or you’ll go to jail, got it?
Water down the history, literature, social studies,
Out with creativity, we don’t need critical thinkers, do we,
In a system where the vast majority of jobs
are to slave away for minimum wage, workin for a boss?

But something new is happening: now even that is gone.
Automated labor has created a new problem:
They don't need us working in their factories no more
But they do need us in their warehouses so they can win their war

So they close the public schools when they wanna make a buck
But when COVID puts our lives at risk, they do not give a fuck
They say we gotta open schools up – the ones we haven't closed –
Cuz we don't care if you live or die, and where else would you go?

Maybe jail, maybe prison, maybe concentration camps
While they beef up the police state and they bail out the banks
Closing clinics, building condos, putting people on the street
That's the kind of education we gon get from the elite

If this shit ain’t fucking fascist, well, then I don’t know what is.
Tyranny of corporations: “Slavery, Inc.”
Lightfoot & buddies up in City Hall huddle
like a pack of vicious vultures, to callously shutter up
another housing project till there’s not even one left.
Sellin public schools out for charter paychecks.
Packin fifty students in a class with old books,
cuttin back, Special Ed, art & music go first,
Then it’s nurses, counselors, janitors, lunch is gross meat,
Soon enough they’re sittin in a room with no heat.

But “It’s all about the kids,” right? Lori's on our side,
It’s not her fault we’ve got an educational apartheid.
It’s gotta be the teachers, them motherfuckers lazy,
Better bust their unions up, cut their payment, raise fees.

Call me crazy, but I think I see a pattern:
They‘re takin away our basic needs while they keep getting fatter,
Their politics are like their classes: just monologue,
Turnin schools into prison: soft holocaust.

All of us now have to make a decision:
Keep trying to fix a broken capitalist system,
or redesign society, unite for a new Vision
where everyone participates and everybody listens --

This is why we make a space for everyone to talk.
This is what Democracy looks like: Hip Hop.
This is our Pedagogy – This is why we rock
the Mic, and we pass it so the Cipher don’t stop.

All True Roads Lead Here

 To organize around your dream

To trust in some angelic scheme

To write and sing the songs you hear

All true roads lead here

The rat-infested tents and streets

The land where plundering repeats

The fight to make the river clear

All true roads lead here

The books that rip the lies to shreds

The networks of a million threads

The star that calls to persevere

All true roads lead here

The neighbor with no funds to eat

The empty houses down the street

The nerve to make your prayer sincere

All true roads lead here

We The People

are remembering our name
waking up & taking what was always promised us
but never was intended to be ours

we the workers / we the renters
we the women / we the youth
we the houseless / the illegals
the unemployed / the disillusioned
we the Black Lives / we the Natives
the believers & the cynical
we the unsung / we the fire-keepers
the visions of our ancestors
& seeds of generations yet to come

repairing our wounds / shining our light
changing our face / demanding our rights

we the people who work double-shifts
we the people whose loved ones are jailed
we the people who are jailed for the sake of our loved ones
& deported & tortured / evicted & starved

we the people who built all this wealth
for men who said “We the People”
but meant only themselves

we the teachers / we the students
the troublemakers & the truants
we the squatters / we the dreamers
we the marchers / we the movement
we the rebels / we the rabble
we the damned & we the saved
from Atlanta to Seattle
come to claim the deal we made

we the nurses in the fire
we the maids & uber drivers
we who've always been essential
realizing our potential

       We the People in Order to form
       a more perfect Union in the eye of the storm
       establish Justice in the land of slaughter
       insure Domestic Tranquility from those who poison our water
       provide for the Common Defense beyond wars
       promote the General Welfare beyond prisons
       & secure the Blessings of Liberty
       to ourselves & our Posterity

do ordain this new Generation of the Free
& establish our Constitution

for these lands
from sea to sea

This is the Year (2020 / 5781)

 “Relent, O Lord! How long will it be?

Have compassion on your servants.

Satisfy us in the morning with your mercy,

that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants,

your splendor to their children.

May the beauty of the Eternal our God rest upon us;

and establish the work of our hands for us –

Yes, establish the work of our hands.”

– Psalm 90

This is the Year (2020 / 5781)

And this is in fact the year that our apocalypse begun

This is the year the veil has been ripped from off our eyes

The year the sound of truth breaks through the endless din of lies

This is the year the souls of those we love who have been taken

form a spirit legion pushing all the living to awaken

This is the year the sick and weak become our strongest fighters

in the struggle for a vision of a world set to rights

And this is in fact the year thousands of squatters will take over

houses from the big developers, who themselves are the true homeless

For anywhere we lay our heads becomes a kind of home

as anywhere we share our love we find a sweet oasis

It is written:

As they pass through the dry valley of Baca,
it becomes a place of springs, the autumn rain fills it with pools ¹

But those who serve the gods of property have not a homeland

who turn the fertile valleys into deserts for their gain

God sets the lonely in families,
leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the wicked live in a sun-scorched land ²

and mock God openly with lies and climate change denial

while the seas fill up with hurricanes and the west coast drowns in flames

This is the year that everything collapsed / and in its ruin

The people rose to pose the problem / being truly human

From Kenosha to Atlanta to the ravaged streets of Portland

The God of Moses coursed through us to liberate this poor land

This is the year that poems become riots and vice versa

The year we see our warriors have always been our nurses

This is the year that Black Lives Matter more than high end stores

and the year the people realize we've always been at war

And the officers with consciences see how they must resign

or plan to kill more innocents while openly aligning

with the ones who prey on children / practice human sacrifice

O, this is a year too terrible for any poet to write

And this is a year no novelist could properly describe

And a year that no comedian could fully satirize

For there's nothing more ironic or more twisted than the truth

When Reality TV is our new form of fascist rule

This is the year the king gave his most eloquent abuses

On July 4^th from the feet of the Black Hills carved into faces

This is the year the genocide reserved once for the Natives

Turns against the mass of people who are running out of savings

O God, do not remain silent;
do not turn a deaf ear,
be not still, O God!

See how your enemies roar,
how your foes rear their heads.
With cunning they conspire against your people;
they plot against those you cherish.
“Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation.” ³

Yes, this is the year of our worst fears / deeper each morning

And this is the year no theory guides / but scriptures give us warning

How the wicked stop at nothing to take everything they can

How their words become a noxious spell that spreads throughout the land

Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth. ⁴

But this is the year the psalmists and the prophets did predict

When they spoke of the abundance and the downfall of the wicked

This is the year their statues start to vanish overnight

as the angels of rebellion bring God's world into sight

And the bronze that formed the likenesses of slave-trade profiteers

will be wound around the strings guitarists strum year after year

as they sing the stories of these times with imagery so vivid

like Asaph in David's choir, who wrote these words of the wicked:

Surely you place them on slippery ground;

you cast them down to ruin.
How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away...

They are like a dream when one awakes;
and so when you arise, O Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies. ⁵

This is the year the floodwaters of centuries burst forth

and the bloody rivers of our history pour back to their source

This is the year the Lakota set up check points at the Rez

to make it clear they are a people who won't be massacred again

This is the year the fires of our dignity ignite

despite the armies of their fear / This year day breaks the night

Look! Our God is coming out of hiding,

coming down and treading on the high places of the earth!

The mountains melt beneath and the valleys split apart,

like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope. ⁶

This is the year

Every valley shall be raised up,

every mountain and hill made low ⁷

This is the year

The Eternal law comes forth from our dear cities

and from the land the Spirit speaks

to settle all the bitterness of man

This is the year

They will hammer their swords into plowshares

and their spears into sickles

Nation will not lift up sword against nation

nor study war ever again ⁸

This is the year of all these things

And every year to come, we'll sing:

O God, when you led your people,

when you marched across the chaos,

the earth shook, and the sky poured down rain

at of the coming of the God of Justice,

the coming of the God of Freedom,

You caused abundant rain to fall

and restored your worn-out world,

and your people made a home there;

from your bounty you provided for the poor.

⁹

1Ps. 84:6

2Ps. 68:6

3Ps. 83:1-4

4Ps. 73:9

5Ps. 73:18-20

6Mic. 1:3-4

7Isa. 40:4

8Isa. 2:3-4

9Ps. 68-:7-10

Elegy for Private Property

 A moment of silence for Macy's

This broken shell of a luxury store

On the once Magnificent Mile

The windows are shattered

The clothing racks ransacked

The lavish apparel apparently ravished

And broken glass down every aisle

A moment of silence for Gucci

Our dearly beloved brand now so defiled

An ave for Louis Vuitton

Whose purses went rolling

Like heads of French monarchs

A requiem for Nordstrom whose shoes have been torn from

The shelves and are sadly all gone

A moment of silence for Apple

Whose iPhones and Macbooks were savagely plundered

In one night of chaos and sin

And Best Buy, and Walgreens

And even poor Potbelly's

And Block 37 and 7-11

All victims of senseless break-ins

Of course these were criminal actions

And we will indict and convict and lock up

These hoodlums who dared to transgress

Look, here are the pieces

Of an ATM, broken,

And all the cash registers seem to be stolen

So clearly this wasn't protest

Although, there is some speculation

That some of these high-end shops may have been targeted

Like some kind of raid on the rich

But that doesn't matter

(Much like the young man

Who may or may not have been shot by police)

Now a prayer for Abercrombie and Fitch...

Which Side (2020)

George Floyd called for assistance

And was murdered on our screens

The cop's knee pressed against his neck

Now people round the earth are screaming

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

Don't talk to me about looting

Or any other crime

You're either with Macy's and Target

Or standing for Black Lives

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

At the statue of Columbus
Downtown on Columbus Drive
Cops beat and tear-gassed us protecting
That monument to genocide

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

If we just ended poverty

Why would we need police?

When food is scarce, prisons are plenty

But without justice there's no peace

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

Eyes on the Prize (2020)

Eyes on the Prize (2020)
Adam Gottlieb

George and Eric cried “I can't breathe”,
We say their names as we take the streets
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Without justice, there's no peace
Abolish prisons, defund police
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

No more human sacrifice,
Sack the system and honor life
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
This time we won't compromise
We'll make them respect Black lives
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Hold on, hold on, 
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

Freedom riders bound in jail,
buses coming like ships set sail;
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Water Protectors took the water’s bite,
on that cold November night;
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Got my hand on the freedom plow,
wouldn't take nothing for my journey now;*
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Those of us that they don’t need,
they won’t house, educate or feed;
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

Hold on, hold on, 
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

Well the only thing we did wrong
was stay in the wilderness for too long;*
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Well the only thing we did right
was the day we started to fight;*
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on

We are saved when we believe
if one is chained than none are free;
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
The only chains that we can stand
are the chains of hand in hand;*

Hold on, hold on, 
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.


* traditional verses

nursery rhyme

this world sucks.

so let's make a new one.
you & me both baby
(you can come too, son)

we could be new, love
we could be
princes or princesses poets
(we already prophets) you know it /
we got this / it's obvious /
kinda like seeing stars or knowing what God is / yo...

aint it all this? cosmic as honesty
(but that's just theology / i'm off topic)

we should all share,
like we used to in preschool
it just seemed fair - i help you, you help me. cool.

isn't it simple? isn't it just like – duh –
like oh yea, that's right / that makes sense / word uh huh

we can figure it out / fly planes without pollution /
put the robots to work / that's the damn revolution!

it ain't really that scary - change the game / then we're done
all that stands in our way: is these mofos with guns

but we know they're just pawns of the mofos with dough
the bankers / big oil / & big CEOs

& there's only so long they can fool the masses
into settling for crumbs while still kissing their asses

so... we gotta get out there
& spread the good news

it's humanity's birthday / our cake, planet earth
let's choose to share it this time & take care of it better
learn the lesson / remember /
wisdom of the ancestors

& we'll drink lemonade & dance on the roof
(& you can write poetry & i'll cook some food)
& we'll play all day long & sleep all through the night
or do whatever we want to do

(that's the point right?)

Holy Week (2020)

On Holy Wednesday

(which was also the first night of Passover

and the Sleepless Night of Shab-e-barat)

in the middle of the great pandemic

Bernie Sanders announced

he was conceding his run for President

and as we cried into our breakfast

the pigeons on our back stoop

were finishing their nest

On Holy Thursday

(the Day of the Last Supper)

vast fields of tomatoes, squash, and green beans

rotted in the Florida sun

and prisoners in Cook County Jail

after losing a second brother to coronavirus

posted signs in the windows of their cells reading

Help, No Supply and We're Dying

and the Labor Department reported
over 6.6 million Americans

filed for unemployment in one week

and a pop-up pantry in L.A. drew a mile-long line of cars

and the President repeated his call for the country to reopen in early May
(despite the virus claiming a new life every 47 seconds

and the number of us who have been tested remaining well under 1%)

and on Capitol Hill, senators failed to agree
on a second round of COVID-19 relief

and meanwhile, on our stoop

in the little nest tucked behind the red sneakers

under the shelter of the rolled up carpet

leaning against the brick wall

we found a little cream-white egg

On Good Friday

(the day of the crucifixion)

Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital abruptly did not partner

with Evangelical charitable organization Samaritan's Purse

to set up nine medical tents for overflow patients

in the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, as planned

telling news outlets they were reprioritizing resources

(though it may have had something to do with the ongoing controversy

around the Trumpian relief group's anti-gay statement of faith

and the church's plan to hang a Pride flag over the doors of the Cathedral)

in any case the field hospital was not set up

and we sat on our stoop and prayed outside with the pigeons

(the large gray male during the day

who hopped off the egg and sat on the wooden railing cooing

– to draw our eyes away from the nest? –

and the small dark female who sat on her egg

quietly during the night shift)

On Holy Saturday

(the day there was no God on Earth)

another egg appeared

And on Sunday,

as the Pope gave his Easter homily
to an empty St. Peter's Basilica,

and everyday folks around Chicago

brought food and set up pop-up kitchens

for tent encampments around the city

(cooking steaks and frying chicken wings)

and a new squatter house opened up in our neighborhood
and calls for rent strikes and rent freezes went viral on the web

and Emily and Dan celebrated the arrival of a new house puppy

You and I awoke with spirits renewed

(having wept and laughed through the night before)

and ate waffles for breakfast

and afterwards sat outside and again prayed with the pigeons

that their eggs would safely hatch

and the squabs live to fly

for the courage it takes to place faith in new life

and guard our vision of the good world

that we'd like to give to our children

and for the contagion of hope

to catch from heart to heart

faster than the virus

faster than the fear

for a victory that does not bypass suffering and death,

but passes through them,
opening a path in the abyss

transforming sorrow into joy

and slavery into freedom